The sharing economy goes B2B
The sharing economy was born when Airbnb, carpooling.com and other such platforms allowed peer-to-peer home, car and other rental services between individuals, creating a sector worth tens of billions of dollars. What if the sector took things a step farther, and companies pooled resources?
In fact, pioneer companies have already started sharing parts, infrastructures or even employees! This emerging sector could not only generate substantial economic value, but also boost local employment, open hitherto inaccessible resources to SME or independent tradesmen, regenerate territories, reduce waste and carbon emissions…
Starting at the most basic levels, companies may share waste – one entity’s waste become another one’s raw material as per the basic principle of circular economy – or physical assets such as warehouses or fleets of under-utilized vehicles. Taking classical transactional logic a little further, they may create communities and mutualize intangible assets through purchasing cooperatives, talent pools, or intellectual property trading. The impact of this B2B sharing will be all the greater if the objective is more noble – to improve health services or reach sustainable development goals – than simply optimizing the existing system.
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